is a valuable thing--in its information if it is true, in the mental
exercise it gives in combating it, if it is error, and in any event
as a feather that indicates which way the wind is blowing--in what
direction the blind mole of man's finite judgment is groping around
its prison in search of an outlet to the infinite. And that is true,
Madam, whether you call them opinions, or o-pin-ions!




OBSERVATIONS OF A RETIRED VETERAN II


You have been to the Conference? So have I, but it was twelve years
ago. Still I shall never forget a scene I witnessed there. It was in
the same Methodist church that this one is being held in. For days I
had been interested in a plain, homely-faced minister, considerably
past his half century, who came in evidently with great pain on
crutches. The town bell striking the hour was not more punctual than
the sound of his crutches. His hands were distorted by rheumatism, his
limbs twisted, and his face had a patient look as of one who had
suffered for a hundred years. His face was rough, but somewhere about
its expression there was a graciousness that attracted my attention.
One other expression in it struck me; it was the air of a man who had
finished his work. Not that he hadn't frequent consultations with the
ministers who approached him, or showed any lack of interest in what
was going on, but just a look as if he was doing anything for the last
time. Once he got up and made an official report of some kind to the
Bishop. As he closed it, his eyes burned with an intense anxiety and
he opened his lips as if to say something. But it was left unsaid, and